Qantas passengers 'expect delays'

[Chris Tully]

QANTAS passengers can expect delays this month following the breakdown of wage negotiations with maintenance engineers who have promised to take industrial action.

Qantas chief executive Geoff Dixon said the airline would not increase its offer after the engineers' union informed him of its planned industrial action.

He said the Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association (ALAEA) will commence overtime bans from May 15 and will hold four-hour, stop-work meetings on May 16 and May 23.

The ALAEA is pushing for a new enterprise agreement that includes pay rises of five per cent a year rather than the airline's standard pay offer.

"Qantas has made it very clear,'' Mr Dixon said.

"We will not break our wages policy of three per cent annual pay increases and a one per cent additional superannuation contribution, as we reinvest our profits in aircraft purchase to continue to grow Qantas in difficult times.''

He said the union is in the wrong and passengers may suffer for it.

"This action is unjustified and we plan to ensure all customers reach their destination on these days,'' Mr Dixon said.

"We will be expecting some delays during the two Friday afternoons.''

AAP

A real shame.

[Nigel C]

What's that? The ALAEA demands or the Qantas reply? And why?

[Alex G]

"Reinvest our PROFITS as we continue to GROW" - Difficult times???

Can't be that bad if you've got the cash to purchase new aircraft!

[Steve B.]

Alex G.

Alex, if you are going to quote text then quote that text without change, or leave off the quotation marks.

Your quote should have read, "reinvest our profits in aircraft purchase to continue to grow Qantas in difficult times.''.
NOT ""Reinvest our PROFITS as we continue to GROW" - Difficult times???"

You show the same cavalier attitude and deceptive practice towards quoting text/people as many of our Australian journalists.

Now, my observation on your post.

Would you rather Qantas paid increased dividends to share holders and increased wages to employees, or to invest in new aircraft to remain type competitive and reduce the maintenance costs of the older aircraft types?

Qantas is undergoing its largest ever new aircraft aquisition. These new aircraft will go a long way to ensuring that Qantas will remain competitive. These aquisitions are very costly but they are necessary to remain competitive, so, yes, times are difficult, not only for Qantas but many international airlines.

The alternative I guess is avoid the difficult times by not investing in new aircraft and slowly go out of business with the subsequent loss of thousands of jobs.

Regards
Stephen

[Chris Tully]

Expect the price of fuel to probably reach USD$200 per barrel by the end of the year. You can call that an extremely difficult time!

Airlines will go bust if it gets to that.

[Alex G]

Ok Stephen, how about this:


"reinvest our profits in aircraft purchase to continue to grow Qantas in difficult times.''

Profits, Grow - Don't sound like difficult times to me.


Ok maybe i should have worded it better to get my point across. So shoot me, at least at the moment i'd die happy :D
It just sounds like a bad choice of words in Mr Dixon's statement mixing PROFIT and DIFFICULT TIMES together!

[Daniel F]

Just because a company is profitable doesn't mean it is going well.

For example, say you had a $1M deposit with a bank and they gave you $10 interest in a year... would you be happy about that?

Same thing with a company. Shareholders give the company money to invest and shareholders expect a reasonable return, not just any return.

[Chris Tully]

Fuel comprises 43% of costs for Qantas.

With only a small proportion of fuel hedged and with oil hitting USD$126 today per barrel, the future will certainly be difficult.

Qantas will struggle to meet its cost of capital on international and domestic operations, yet the market expects 'better than before' returns.

Investors will demand Qantas attain efficiencies and drive down costs further.

It will certainly be difficult times going-forward.

Expect very poor returns from all airlines.

How do you reinvest into your company if you can barley pay your investors...

You can only borrow so much!

[Rhys Xanthis]

They dont get a bad deal as it is...Just creating problems...

[Andrew M]

Expect the price of fuel to probably reach USD$200 per barrel by the end of the year. You can call that an extremely difficult time!

Airlines will go bust if it gets to that.

Currently at $126 per barrel !

[Nick W.]

Airlines will go bust if it gets to that.

Airlines will always find new and improved ways to go bust, and have been doing so for decades...

[Philip Argy]

I've probably got a conflict of interest as a Qantas shareholder and a QF platinum frequent flyer, but I think it's a pretty difficult juggling act to keep the shareholders, staff, and passengers all happy most of the time whilst looking to the future to make sure that you don't lose a competitive edge.

As a shareholder right now the two things that most concern me are fuel prices, which can usually be covered at least to some extent with a fuel levy/surcharge, and the delay on the A380 deliveries which I hope will entitle Qantas to sufficient liquidated damages. I can't deny wanting to travel SQ when I get a chance and I am beginning to hate the old 767 fleet with increasing passion.

I also think DJ is going to hurt Qantas on the Canberra run as the Embrauers will be more popular than the Dash 8s, especially if they get the aerobridges all the time. Walking across the tarmac in Canberra in winter and waiting in the cold for "Premium" hand luggage quickly loses its attraction.

I don't begrudge the staff fair wages for fair productivity, and I certainly don't want to see safety compromised, so right now I'd have to say Dixon's team is juggling OK with the task ahead only getting harder.

[Ash W]

Ok maybe i should have worded it better to get my point across.

Umm if you are quoting someone you use THEIR words, not your own, unless of course you are trying to turn the words around to make your own but different point.

...

As a shareholder right now the two things that most concern me are fuel prices, which can usually be covered at least to some extent with a fuel levy/surcharge, and the delay on the A380 deliveries which I hope will entitle Qantas to sufficient liquidated damages. I can't deny wanting to travel SQ when I get a chance and I am beginning to hate the old 767 fleet with increasing passion.

I also think DJ is going to hurt Qantas on the Canberra run as the Embrauers will be more popular than the Dash 8s, especially if they get the aerobridges all the time. Walking across the tarmac in Canberra in winter and waiting in the cold for "Premium" hand luggage quickly loses its attraction.

I don't begrudge the staff fair wages for fair productivity, and I certainly don't want to see safety compromised, so right now I'd have to say Dixon's team is juggling OK with the task ahead only getting harder.

Pretty well summed up, it is a jugling act and I know for one I wouldn't want to be doing it.

As for Canberra-Sydney it will be interesting to see how it all goes for Virgin Blue and Qantas. I tend to agree that the space in the dash-8's will be a killer and as for this premium hand luggage what a joke. I recently purchased a cabin bag that conforms to Qantas link standards (think it is 105cm vis 115 on mainline), it fits in the frame but everytime I fly they insist it gets put in the hold as premium hand baggage.

I also heard that the Department of Finance has recently sent a directive to all Government departments that they are to give at least 25% of their business to Virgin Blue on the CBR-SYD run, athough oddly still mainting best fare of the day policy. Doesn't make sense to me as to how you can have a best fare policy AND a quota system.

[Alex G]

Sounds like the consensus is that a differing opinion is not warranted.
Looks like I'm not all that fantastic at emphasising my point in text.... Oh well.

Maybe i should go to the pub- whose shout?

[Ash W]

Sounds like the consensus is that a differing opinion is not warranted.
Looks like I'm not all that fantastic at emphasising my point in text.... Oh well.

Maybe i should go to the pub- whose shout?


I don't think anyone has an objection to a differing opionion, but altering a quote to push your argument is stretching it a bit far.

[Alex G]

So, selective emphasis appears to be out the window.
Ill keep it in mind next time i quote- ill quote the absolute full text, every last little single bit..

Well SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY YYYY for not throwing my hat into the ring for 'most politically correct quote of the year'

[Ash W]

So, selective emphasis appears to be out the window.
Ill keep it in mind next time i quote- ill quote the absolute full text, every last little single bit..

Well SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY YYYY for not throwing my hat into the ring for 'most politically correct quote of the year'

If you are going to quote, quote properly. You can cut words out of a quote but you should show that words are missing and it is not an exact quote. If you change the words to suit your argument then it is no longer a quote. In fact your quote with the addition of the word as changed the whole meaning.

As for the subject what would you want Qantas to do? Not re-invest in fleet renewal? Look at some of the airlines where the share holders didn't bother to re-invest in fleet renewal when it was really needed, Ansett under News Corp for eg and you will see what happens.

As for pay rises for staff, no one would disgaree that staff are entitled to be paid a fair rate, but profits in a company are no reason for it. Profits should be shared through bonuses not wage rises, afterall if the company started to loose money no employee would put their hand up for a pay cut would they?

[Brenden S]

Now let me think back to 2002 when I first started at Qantas, and it was hard and difficult times back then, and somehow every time a group would like a pay rise to keep up with inflation the CEO always comes out "oh were in a tough time and were bleeding money". We worked out the other night that the fuel surcharge that Qantas is charging a full load of pax that the pax pay for all the fuel, and then some. Go figure!

[Daniel F]

We worked out the other night that the fuel surcharge that Qantas is charging a full load of pax that the pax pay for all the fuel, and then some. Go figure!

That won't be for every flight though. The domestic fuel surcharge is the same regardless of the distance of the flight so of course there will be some sectors where a profit is made, but some where they will make a loss.

[Philip Argy]

Who best to pilot Qantas through headwinds?
10 May 2008 | The Australian Financial Review | Katrina Nicholas SINGAPORE

For those that haven't seen the report, it suggests that the three top contenders to succeed Geoff Dixon when he retires (probably in August) are internal candidates Peter Gregg, John Borghetti and Alan Joyce.

Any comments?

[Nigel C]

Yes. I prefer the larger fonts, especially at 0330 in the morning!:p

[Alex G]

If you are going to quote, quote properly. You can cut words out of a quote but you should show that words are missing and it is not an exact quote. If you change the words to suit your argument then it is no longer a quote. In fact your quote with the addition of the word as changed the whole meaning.

As for the subject what would you want Qantas to do? Not re-invest in fleet renewal? Look at some of the airlines where the share holders didn't bother to re-invest in fleet renewal when it was really needed, Ansett under News Corp for eg and you will see what happens.

As for pay rises for staff, no one would disgaree that staff are entitled to be paid a fair rate, but profits in a company are no reason for it. Profits should be shared through bonuses not wage rises, afterall if the company started to loose money no employee would put their hand up for a pay cut would they?


If im going to "QUOTE" ill hit the quote button. If im going to emphasise my point, im not going to put in the whole lot and then go deleting all but the half a dozen or so words i originally used.

I did show that words were missing by them not being there! I did clearly display that the original post of mine was not a full direct quote. The way it is written, with my subsequent question at the end of the first line reinforces such. Should i maybe have used the ' instead of " button????

Abviously the way i write is lost on some........... Even if i did put every single word in, and then put in my subsequent remark, i think people would still be picky.

Bugger me, i did say that maybe i should have written the first one a little better...


[BTW, did i quote correctly in this post?]

[Philip Argy]

Whilst not wanting to encourage pedantry, could I encourage people to at least peruse this abbreviated style guide that reflects current usage in Australia:
http://www.uow.edu.au/wupa/files/rhizome/stylesheet.pdf

Under the heading "QUOTATIONS" it explains the use of ellipsis points [...] to signify deleted text. For the purists, a three point ellipsis means that omitted material is within the one sentence whereas a four point ellipsis [....] signifies the omission of more than a sentence.

Having said that, the style guide in question is for a particular magazine and doesn't apply to YSSY. I just thought it was a useful reference point in the context of some of the [off topic!] contributions in this thread.

[Moderator]

Back on topic please. Quoting suggestions to cease. Thank you.

[Andrew C]

Looks like the industrial action is to hot up this week with Bans from Thursday and a 4 hour stoppage on Friday by the Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers.

I don;t actually know why Mr D. is going in with such hard ball on this one. I would have thought 3 v 5 points a little in the middle might have found peace.

Andrew

QANTAS chief executive Geoff Dixon has appealed to the airline's staff to help keep disruptions to travellers to a minimum as it shapes up for what could be a protracted pay dispute with its engineers.

The Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association will introduce ongoing overtime bans from midnight on Thursday and stage a four-hour stoppage on Friday, with a second the following Friday, in support of a 5 per cent wage claim. Mr Dixon said the action, which came after the union had reneged on a previous deal, would cause significant disruption to customers and financial losses to Qantas.

"The ALAEA has every right to take this protected action during EBA negotiations. That is the system we work under," Mr Dixon said. "Qantas also has every right to resist such action and to take any action to ensure our customers are not unduly disrupted. This is what we intend to do."

Mr Dixon reiterated his stance that Qantas would not change its 3 per cent wages policy or negotiate on the issue. He said the policy had allowed the company to invest more than $30 billion in new aircraft and add 6000 jobs at a time other carriers were reducing employment.

"Our industry is always difficult. No more so than now, with the price of crude oil reaching a new all-time high of $US126.25 a barrel on Friday night, double what it was a year ago," he said.

The ALAEA wants a wage increase that reflects rises in the cost of living and has warned it could introduce 48-hour stoppages if Qantas does anything to hurt its members. It has accused the airline of employing strikebreakers.

ALAEA federal secretary Steve Purvinas last night dismissed Mr Dixon's appeal to staff.

"It sounds to me that he just wants to keep delays down so he can keep wages down," he said.

[Brenden S]

About time they stand up. Looks like I am going to be in for a interesting 2 days at work!

[Chris Tully]

The rest of the QF Group accepted 3% so why will the engineers not accept it?

Disappointing.

[Will T]

Statement on Engineering Industrial Action
Sydney, 14 May 2008

Qantas said today it had put in place measures to minimise the impact on customers during the Australian Licensed Engineers Association's (ALAEA) four-hour stop work meeting on Friday.

The Chief Executive Officer of Qantas, Mr Geoff Dixon, said while Qantas did not expect any significant issues as a result of the proposed overtime bans commencing tomorrow, there would be delays as a result of Friday's action between 2pm and 6pm.

"To address this, we have cancelled a limited number of domestic services during that period. We have begun contacting affected customers and re-booking them on other services and everything will be done to get them to their destination as quickly as possible."

Mr Dixon said the ALAEA was, as it always did when in dispute with the airline, raising questions about safety.

"Of course, it is no coincidence that when the union is on a crusade for more money it decides to play the 'safety card'," he said.

"Safety is our top priority - we never have and never will compromise this."

Information on schedule changes will be available on qantas.com.


Issued by Qantas Corporate Communication (3759)
Email: qantasmedia@qantas.com.au

http://www.qantas.com.au/regions/dyn/au/publicaffairs/details?ArticleID=2008/may08/3759

[D Chan]

Who best to pilot Qantas through headwinds?
10 May 2008 | The Australian Financial Review | Katrina Nicholas SINGAPORE

For those that haven't seen the report, it suggests that the three top contenders to succeed Geoff Dixon when he retires (probably in August) are internal candidates Peter Gregg, John Borghetti and Alan Joyce.

Any comments?

James Hogan and Rod Eddington - two names that I think have what it takes for the role!

[Sarah C]

Who best to pilot Qantas through headwinds?
10 May 2008 | The Australian Financial Review | Katrina Nicholas SINGAPORE

For those that haven't seen the report, it suggests that the three top contenders to succeed Geoff Dixon when he retires (probably in August) are internal candidates Peter Gregg, John Borghetti and Alan Joyce.

Any comments?

I didn't see the article - can you post it or do you have a link Philip?

[Will T]

Qantas prepares to smash strike
Andrew West and Scott Rochfort
May 15, 2008


AUSTRALIA'S flagship airline is preparing to smash its unionised engineering workforce with non-union labour recruited in Asia and the Pacific, in a move that echoes the epic maritime dispute that rocked the waterfront a decade ago.

Documents seen by the Herald show Qantas has engaged a labour hire company, Newport Aviation, to recruit the highly trained licensed aircraft maintenance engineers.

Newport's employment contract offers "fixed-term casual" positions of between one and three months, paying $2308 a week, with the possibility of a $40,000 "completion bonus".

The Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association, which represents the 1500 Qantas workers, believes the airline is readying a casual workforce to break a strike beginning tomorrow.

The association and the airline are stalled in pay negotiations and the association's national secretary, Steve Purvinas, believes management will try to lock out workers during a four-hour stop-work meeting scheduled for tomorrow morning.

"This is shaping up as the biggest dispute since the waterfront," Mr Purvinas said, referring to the way Patrick Stevedoring trained union-busting wharfies in the Persian Gulf port of Dubai in the '90s.

The airline is understood to have assembled a strike-breaking force of up to 100 maintenance engineers, including qualified personnel who are in management.

Last night, Qantas's chief executive, Geoff Dixon, told the Herald: "We have made a decision."

He refused to comment on whether the airline was training strike-breakers, adding only: "They are our business, our contingencies. They're not for the media or anyone else [to know]."

An airline spokeswoman would neither confirm nor deny that Qantas had contracted Newport Aviation.

Union sources within Qantas and the replacement workforce say recruits were yesterday moved into hotels near airports in Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, Brisbane, Adelaide, Darwin and Perth and to regional air hubs in Townsville, Cairns and Alice Springs.

Recruits trained in Malaysia were also understood to be boarding planes last night, ready to start work tomorrow. "We have been hearing from our people inside management and the union-busting workforce that Qantas has today been moving people around the country to allow them to exercise this option," Mr Purvinas said.

The Herald understands that yesterday some of the recruits from Malaysia were offered an additional $40,000 to overcome their concerns about working in Australia.


The union has been pursuing a 5 per cent wage increase for the past 18 months but the airline wants to cap pay rises for non-executive staff at 3 per cent.

While Qantas cannot legally dismiss its unionised workers - as Patrick did in April 1998 before the High Court upheld a Federal Court order to reinstate them - Mr Purvinas said the company "can lock our members out of the gate indefinitely until we accede their below-inflation wage offer".

Qantas has been taking an increasingly hard line against unionised staff. It began in 2003 when it started training cheap cabin crew in Thailand and New Zealand. A former airline union official, Maurice Alexander, has also been supplying the airline with lower paid domestic flight attendants through his labour hire company.

Newport Aviation was registered by the labour hire entrepreneur Bruce Macdonald last September, just before enterprise bargaining talks between the airline and the union broke down, fuelling suspicions in the industry that Newport was established to hire strike breakers for Qantas.

The Herald was unable to contact Mr Macdonald.

http://business.smh.com.au/qantas-prepares-to-smash-strike-20080514-2eat.html

[Nigel C]

The gloves are officially off it seems.

It looks like the engineers are going to have their works cut out for them.
On one hand they'll be fighting with management at the negotiating table, and on the other they'll be trying desperately to undermine the labour hire engineers to try to protect and justify their jobs, pay and conditions.

As unlikely as it may seem, I just hope they don't resort to any dirty tactics and compromise the safety of the flying public in order to push their agenda.

[damien b]

The ALEA has called off the strike according to the following report.

From news.com.au

Qantas engineers call off strike
By Peter Veness
May 15, 2008 01:15pm


QANTAS engineers have backed down from planned industrial action, indicating they will accept a smaller increase in their wage demand.

ACTU president Sharan Burrow has asked the Australian Licensed Engineers Association (ALEA) to call off its four-hour stop-work meeting planned for tomorrow afternoon, which Qantas had said would force it to cancel a number of domestic flights.

Ms Burrow said the engineers would be willing to accept a rise somewhere in between the 5 per cent they demanded and the 3 per cent Qantas had continued to offer over the previous 18 months of failed wage negotiations.

However it was not immediately clear if Qantas would be prepared to pay more than 3 per cent.

The union said earlier that it had not expected the strike to cause cancellations, but Qantas boss Geoff Dixon had said some flights would be cut if the stop-work had gone ahead.

Reports this morning claimed Qantas had been offering non-union workers $100,000 for six months work in a bid to break the planned strike. The Sydney Morning Herald reported that documents showed Qantas had also offered a $40,000 "completion bonus".

A Qantas spokesman would not comment on those reports. The airline stands to make a $1.5 billion profit this financial year.

ALEA federal secretary Steve Purvinas said most of the potential strike-breakers would have been expat engineers returning home from Malaysia. Mr Purvinas said they stood to earn three times more than Qantas's current engineers.

Mr Purvinas had said there were also rumours that union engineers will be locked-out of their workplace.

[Alex G]

....but the airline wants to cap pay rises for non-executive staff at 3 per cent.


Love it... five or more percent for themselves no worries, but when it comes to the workforce, oh noooo we cant have that!

[Kelvin R]

Hi Alex G,

There are a couple of books you might like to read which would (if you are interested) provide some balance into your thinking. The first is called "The World is Flat 3.0" by Thomas L. Friedman see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_is_Flat for a summary and http://www.thomaslfriedman.com/index.htm this will explain what you can do about flattism as an individual to help ensure that its not your job that is outsourced or offshored or undercut by a graduate.

The second book is called Strategy Maps by Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategy_map for a summary and amazon or fishpond.com.au to buy the book which explains why some jobs are paid more than others and therefore why some jobs may have a payrise capped and others not.

The first book is written by a journalist and is based on observational opinion and the second by a couple of academics and is based on cold hard research. Both make good reading from an observational "why do things work they way they do and what should be changed to make them better perspective".

[Marty H]

The ALEA has called off the strike according to the following report.

From news.com.au

Why Im not part of a union as they are all full of hot air and gutless.

[Alex G]

....the book which explains why some jobs are paid more than others and therefore why some jobs may have a payrise capped and others not.


Kelvin, not to knock the books or anything, but i'd call the attitude hypocritical.
Management saying "No, you can't have your payrise, but we'll take a bigger one, just because we can"...


I am more than well aware some jobs pay more than others, thats natural- for example i got paid about twice as much when i washed dishes than when i flew a Twin Otter; doubt the book can explain that one!!!
However when the above management hypocricy happens, its just a load of stuff that i just flushed down the toilet.....

"Flattism" hmm, can't say ive heard that one before.... too many ISMs in the world..........

I might stop being so blunt with my opinion when i get flying though.... Best way i can ensure my job goes to nobody else is to do such a good job- its ultimately not my decision to give it away to someone else. This is the management...... and back we go to my last post!

[Kelvin R]

Hi Alex,

I am not one for books either but those two are well worth the effort, especially The World is Flat 3.0. I find the concepts of globalisation and management theory very interesting as I have seen so many poor managers in my opinion that I wanted to understand what was going wrong.

The problem that the engineers have is that the majority of their jobs can be done at a similiar level of quality for less money overseas in a business which is struggling to return the value expected by shareholders and requires a fleet of around 100 planes which are around 20 years old to be replaced. QF only have a limited pot of money and management have to decide where to spend that money based on what return each option will make. To be blunt about it, giving engineers another 2% increase will not return the value that shareholders (not management) expect.

Who appoints management? The shareholders do. The shareholders have essentially lent QF money to operate the business and they expect (reasonably so) that money makes a return. If this isn't reasonable to expect an airline to make a suitable return for shareholders at the expense of highly skilled Australians then the business should not be a public company but should have remained a Government owned business run for the greater good of the nation. Sadly it seems you can't claim national interest and shareholder value at the same time.

Perhaps the Unions and the Government should buy QF back and return it to being a state run airline?

[D Chan]

Sadly it seems you can't claim national interest and shareholder value at the same time.

that is true unless you're talking about Singapore's Temasek Holdings.

Perhaps the Unions and the Government should buy QF back and return it to being a state run airline?

State-ownership model should be buried and never resurrected.
1. It doesn't make sense for the government on one hand to be the regulator (whether we're talking about regulating safety, traffic rights or other areas) AND operating an airline that is being regulated. What I am referring to is that there isn't enough 'indepedence' betwee the regulated and the regulator because both belongs to the government.

2. you can be rest assured that if an airline falls back to government ownership - it will be used as a politcal football by politicians who know very little or nothing about what it takes to run an airline (Alitalia and Air India are good examples). There are exceptions of course (e.g. Emirates), but not a lot of them. In fact if Qantas was not privatised back in the 90s I'd doubt it would be in as good a shape as it is today.

3. What would the state-owned company's competitors think?

[Ash W]

Hi Alex,

I am not one for books either but those two are well worth the effort, especially The World is Flat 3.0. I find the concepts of globalisation and management theory very interesting as I have seen so many poor managers in my opinion that I wanted to understand what was going wrong.

The problem that the engineers have is that the majority of their jobs can be done at a similiar level of quality for less money overseas in a business which is struggling to return the value expected by shareholders and requires a fleet of around 100 planes which are around 20 years old to be replaced. QF only have a limited pot of money and management have to decide where to spend that money based on what return each option will make. To be blunt about it, giving engineers another 2% increase will not return the value that shareholders (not management) expect.

Who appoints management? The shareholders do. The shareholders have essentially lent QF money to operate the business and they expect (reasonably so) that money makes a return. If this isn't reasonable to expect an airline to make a suitable return for shareholders at the expense of highly skilled Australians then the business should not be a public company but should have remained a Government owned business run for the greater good of the nation. Sadly it seems you can't claim national interest and shareholder value at the same time.

Perhaps the Unions and the Government should buy QF back and return it to being a state run airline?

That is a pretty good summary of how the world of business works and the situation that Qantas finds themselves in. Things are not as simple as many seem to think.